Douglas J. La Follette (born June 6, 1940, in Des Moines, Iowa) is the current DemocraticWisconsin Secretary of State. He was first elected to the statewide position in 1983 and has been subsequently re-elected to the office seven times. He earlier served a term in the office from 1975-1979. He ran for re-election on November 4, 2014.[1] Douglas La Follette won the general election on November 4, 2014.

La Follette unsuccessfully ran for Wisconsin Governor in the 2012 recall election against incumbent Gov. Scott Walker, losing in the primary.[2] The recall was the result of Walker's championing of a law restricting collective bargaining rights. Following its passage, La Follette incited anger from the GOP by delaying the bill's publication, which gave opponents time to go to court and delay it by months. As payback, Republicans passed a bill in 2013 to strip the secretary of state of the power to delay the publication of new laws.[3]

A longtime environmentalist, La Follette helped to organize the first Earth Day in 1970. He first ran for office in 1970, losing his bid for Congress. He then won election to the state Senate, representing Kenosha from 1972-1974.[4]

La Follette has been outspoken about his beliefs on the influence of money in elections, saying he has tried to “lead an effort when I could against the big campaign money.” He cited the issue as a reason for his loss in the 2012 recall as well as his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1988.[5]

Biography

La Follette began a teaching career as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Known as a diligent environmental activist prior to running for public office, he was a Wisconsin organizer for the first "Earth Day for Gaylord Nelson" in 1970 and co-founded Wisconsin's Environmental Decade. La Follette helped organized the Earth Day celebration in Wisconsin again in 1990. He was named a Fulbright Distinguished American Scholar in 2003.

In addition to his duties as secretary of state, La Follette has authored a book, The Survival Handbook: A Strategy for Saving Planet Earth, published in 1991, and has served in several other roles, including, but not limited to:

Council on Economic Priorities consultant

Public Affairs Director for the Union of Concerned Scientists as well as the Assistant Director of the Mid American Solar Energy Complex.

Board of directors of the Sierra Club for a three-year term.[6]2003-2006

Former advisory board member of Carrying Capacity Network and is currently an adviser to NumbersUSA.

Education

Bachelor's degree, Marietta College (1963) in business

Master of Science degree, Stanford University (1964) in chemistry

Doctoral degree, Columbia University (1967) in organic chemistry

Political career

Wisconsin Secretary of State (1974-1978, 1983-present)

La Follette currently serves as the Wisconsin Secretary of State, a post to which he was first elected in 1974. In 1978, he launched his campaign to be the state's next lieutenant governor, losing while on a ticket with Governor Martin Schreiber. He was elected to the secretary of state office again in 1982, defeating the incumbent Vel Phillips and has remained in the statewide position ever since. He has often run unopposed, and shuns fundraising in the style of former Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire. In 1990, his opponent -- Madison attorney and radio personality Stuart Levitan -- campaigned on a promise to eliminate the Secretary of State's office, whose duties such as monitoring lobbying activities and investigating ethics violations have been reduced and transferred to other agencies including the State Board of Elections under LaFollette's tenure.

Some have called for the elimination of the Wisconsin Office of Secretary of State, believing it to be nothing more than “a huge government filing cabinet where one can find land deeds, oaths of office and the complete Blue Book collection since 1853. The secretary’s most notable task is affixing the state’s Great Seal to all of the official acts of the governor."[7]Wisconsin State Senator Alan Lasee of De Pere proposed a constitutional amendment in April 2009 calling for the elimination of the offices of Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State, estimating it would save the state up to $2.2 million dollars over the course of two years.[8]

Since being elected Secretary of State, LaFollette has run twice for federal office. In 1988, he ran for the United States Senate, losing in the Democratic primary to Herbert Kohl. In 1996, he lost another primary contest in the first congressional district, this time to Lydia Spottswood, who then lost the general election to Mark Neumann.

Controversies

Stolen quotes

In 1970, the Kenosha News broke the story that La Follete, while campaigning in the Democratic Primary in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District against Les Aspin, produced a brochure supposedly full of quotes from average citizens who played up his family ties to ‘Fighting’ Bob La Follette. The Wisconsin newspaper revealed those quotes were stolen from the campaign literature of Michael Harrington, a MassachusettsDemocrat.[9]

WCCN

La Follette was ordered in 1984 to pay a $500 fine for allowing the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN), an activist organization whose purpose was to promote people-to-people projects and locally-based "municipal foreign policies" by individual United States cities as an alternative to the militaristic foreign policy of the United States government under President Ronald Reagan, to use his secretary of state office as a base for their activities. La Follette’s then-wife was the leader of the non-profit organization at the time.[10]

Lobbyists

In 1988, La Follette was punished with a fine of $50 for allowing lobbyists to sign a letter requesting that the Wisconsin State Legislature to increase the staff in the office of secretary of state.

Notification of law change

In 1990, Stuart Levitan, a challenger for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin Secretary of State, charged La Follette “through ingnorance or incompetence [for] fail[ing] to notify [Milwaukee] county officials of a proposed change in state law that will cost the county at least $50,000 a year.”[11]

State computer use

In 2006, La Follette was fined $500 by the Wisconsin State Ethics Board after he admitted to using a state-owned computer and email system to create and send campaign-related documents.[12]

Both Republican primary candidates, Bradley and State RepresentativeGarey Bies, argued that the office had become ceremonial and that the current state was unacceptable. While Bies wanted to eliminate the office and give its remaining powers to other agencies, Bradley's platform was to reform the office and regain its former powers.[14][15]

Bradley won the Republican nomination in the primary on August 12 by a large margin, though Republican primary voters do not necessarily prefer the office's reform to elimination, considering this issue's relative obscurity. Some of Bradley's support may have come from his emerging status as a candidate with future potential in the Republican Party, which was underlined in late August 2014 when the Republican State Leadership Committee named this race as "one of 14 races to watch" across the country.[16] La Follette was unopposed in the Democratic primary.

2006

On September 12, 2006, LaFollette easily won re-nomination as the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State over primary challenger Scot Ross, who, earlier that year, admitted to illegally campaigning on state time as a member of the State Assembly Democratic Caucus.[21] Ross would go on to become executive director of One Wisconsin Now, a progressive political activist organization.

His general election opponent, Republican Sandy Sullivan, drew local media attention for her self-published "tell-all" book in which she claimed she had affairs with several ex-Green Bay Packer football players.[22]

Campaign contributions

Comprehensive donor information for La Follette is available dating back to 1998. Based on available campaign finance records, La Follette raised a total of $181,079 during that time period. This information was last updated on May 6, 2013.[24]

Douglas La Follette's Campaign Contribution History

Year

Office

Result

Contributions

2012

Governor of Wisconsin

$114,230

2010

Wisconsin Secretary of State

$1,071

2008

Wisconsin Secretary of State

$52

2006

Wisconsin Secretary of State

$25,897

2004

Wisconsin Secretary of State

$96

2002

Wisconsin Secretary of State

$1,300

1998

Wisconsin Secretary of State

$38,433

Grand Total Raised

$181,079

2002-2010

Ballotpedia collects information on campaign donors for each year in which a candidate or incumbent is running for election. The following table offers a breakdown of Douglas La Follette's donors each year.[25] Click [show] for more information.